ACTion News 11/28/2007
Early reaction to the 2008 American-Canadian Tour schedule has been very positive, giving an indication that there may be even more full-time title chasers next year. A dozen teams gave it the old college try this year, with another nine attempting to qualify for more than half of the 13 races.
A totally revamped schedule and championship points format will allow more of those teams that “just missed” full-time competition to enter the title hunt – a driver’s or owner’s best 10 results during the 12-race campaign in 2008 will be counted toward the ACT championship standings, thereby allowing teams to “drop” their two worst outings. That includes races that drivers fail to qualify for or even fail to attempt qualifying for.
One of the 2007 full-timers, 18 year-old Joey “Pole” Polewarczyk of Hudson, NH, thinks it’s a good system.
“I like it a lot, I think it will work out well for just about everyone,” he said. “Every driver has that one track that they don’t like that much, or at least don’t have very good luck at. For me this past year, it was
One of Joey Pole’s full-time competitors, fellow
“I’ve only been to Lee (USA Speedway, NH) once, and I’ve never been to
The potential for a regular “weekly racer” to turn some strong home-track runs into a Top 10 title bid is very good. Cris Michaud, a three-time Thunder Road Champion, has been selective in his Tour racing over the last few years, but says that the new format could eventually change his mind.
“I’m not committing to the Tour right now, but it’s certainly looking like more and more of a possibility than it had been for my team in the past few years,” said Michaud. “We only have one car and a pretty tight budget, but four of the Tour shows are at
While explaining why he liked the changes to the Tour schedule, Michaud almost sounded as if he was trying to convince himself that running the full season would be pretty easy while juggling a fourth try at the “King of the Road” crown.
“I like
Michaud went even further into it.
“Looking at it, half of the Tour schedule will be done by the time Thursday night races start at Thunder Road, and July and August are pretty much wide open to relax. Really, if you’re a Thursday night racer and you want to run the Tour, you only need to double-up a race weekend two or three times during the year to have a real shot at the full schedule. It’s a very interesting position to be in.”
Michaud, you’ll recall, was an ACT Late Model Tour championship threat big-time in 2001, winning a pair of races and finishing a very close third in the standings. Potter and Polewarczyk aren’t exactly slouches, either; each driver was a first-time ACT winner in 2007, and finished the year fourth and seventh, respectively, in points.
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Chew on this: If the new Tour point system for 2008 was in place in 2007, 12 of the top 17 drivers would have finished in different positions. While Jean-Paul Cyr would still have been the champion over Scott Payea and Brent Dragon, like it was in real life, Cyr’s margin victory over Payea would have been trimmed from 95 points to just 38, and Dragon would have been just 80 behind, rather than 134.
Roger Brown, dropping a key missed event at Kawartha Speedway and a dismal 24th at
The biggest movers would have been Scott Dragon and John Donahue, each gaining two positions. Dragon would have vaulted from 12th to finish 10th, benefiting big time from dropping missed events at Circuit Ste-Croix and Seekonk Speedway. Donahue, who missed races at Autodrome St-Eustache and Kawartha, would have jumped from 14th to 12th.
As exciting as it is for the drivers that move up, there is the potential for a down side, as well. The biggest losers in this scenario would be Eric Chase and Jamie Aube, each falling three positions – Chase from 11th to 14th,
As big a stats geek as this writer is, we haven’t yet figured out how the points would have changed in previous years. Chances are good that we will eventually hunker down and get to it, but it may take a little while.
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Did you know…?
-Second-generation star Brent Dragon has the most career ACT Late Model Tour qualifying heat victories with 32 since the series’ inception in 1992. Even during his days a part-time competitor in the mid-1990s, Dragon was usually able to rip off at least one heat win during the season. The two exceptions were 1995, and again in 1998. Brent at least had a good excuse for 1998 – he didn’t race any ACT events! Pete Fecteau is second on the all-time list with 25 heat wins, followed by Jean-Paul Cyr at 24, and Brian Hoar and Phil Scott at 22 apiece.
-Hoar holds the record for most heat wins in a single season, with six in 1998. In fact, they came in consecutive events (also a record) at Canaan Fair Speedway,
-Do you remember the bonus points Semi-Feature? The Tour held semis in 1992-93 and again from 1998-2002. Fecteau is the all-time win leader with eight, including a single-season record four during his 2001 ACT Late Model Tour Championship season. Lanphear and Steve Miller each copped five semi wins, while Cyr has four to his credit. With three wins, Rick Thompson, Jr. has the most semi-feature tallies without ever winning a main event. He is tied at three with Mark Barnier and Tracie Bellerose.
Check out the websites at www.acttour.com and www.thunderroadspeedbowl.com, or visit the Série ACT Castrol website at www.laserieactcastrol.com. Questions, comments, anything on your mind? Drop us a line via email at media@acttour.com.
Sources: Justin St. Louis/ACT LM Tour PR